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Patterns and shapes

European craftsmen copied designs from Islamic imports, especially luxury silk textiles. These were the most easily transportable trade goods, and often travelled vast distances. Silks made in China and Central Asia were also brought to Europe via Mamluk trade routes, and with them travelled motifs, such as the lotus flower, or mythological beasts whose exotic forms captured the European imagination. The shapes of Islamic imports were also copied. The albarello, for example, was originally a Middle Eastern form of storage jar, which was so widely copied in Italy that this shape is now known by an Italian word.

Silk fragment with a senmurv

This textile fragment shows a mythological creature called a senmurv. It has a dog's head, a lion's paws, a peacock's tail, and a palmette on its neck. The senmurv was a creation of Sasanian art, though it derived from more ancient Iranian cultures and may have symbolised royal luck. Senmurvs were a popular motif and appear for hundreds of years over a wide geographical area, not only on textiles but also in other media such as metalwork. It even appears in Venice in a 9th-century mosaic. However, in the West, the creature underwent a transformation from a fierce mythical beast, as seen here, to a tamer-looking creature.

Silk fragment with a griffin

The griffin has the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle and was seen as a protector from evil. The motif possibly originated in Achaemenid Iran, though it was also used in Byzantine art. As with the senmurv, this exotic creature travelled to Western Europe on silks. Here they captured the local imagination. The Western craftsmen sometimes mixed the creatures' characteristics, and as a result the beasts took on a more cartoonish appearance. On this textile fragment, only the griffin's head remains, though the trunk of an elephant is just visible below it, indicating it was part of an animal combat scene.

Ewer in the shape of a griffin

Ewer in the shape of a griffin, Germany or Mosan. Museum no. 1471-1870

Ewer in the shape of a griffin
Germany or Mosan
About 1120
Museum no. 1471-1870

This kind of vessel held water to wash hands in the home or at church. They were often made in the form of mythical animals, like this griffin, or exotic animals like lions or elephants that European artisans would never have seen in the flesh. The craftsmen probably copied patterns from luxury eastern imports, the most easily portable of which were Chinese, Iranian or Byzantine silks. The animals in these silks were already quite stylised and their transformation to three-dimensions sometimes had strange results. Instead of a fierce mythical creature that combines attributes of the lion and eagle, this griffin looks rather like a tame dog.

These lustre tiles come from the tomb of a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad at Varamin near Tehran in Iran. This was a religious building and figural decoration was therefore inappropriate so the tiles are decorated with stylised plant motifs organised according to a geometric structure. Each tile is then bordered by quotations from the Qur'an. The shapes of the tiles – eight-pointed stars alternating with crosses – also form a geometric pattern, indeed one of the most characteristic geometric patterns used in the Islamic world. The star-and-cross framework spread to Europe, where it was used as the underlying structure of the Cappella Palatina ceiling in Palermo and the pavement of tiles from the Petrucci Palace in Siena, for example.

Pavement of tiles from the Petrucci Palace

This impressive pavement of tiles was commissioned by Pandolfo Petrucci to adorn the floor of the principal room of his palace in Siena. The colours and grotesque designs were inspired by the decoration of the recently-excavated Golden House of Nero in Rome. The pavement also shows aspects of Islamic influence. One is the tin-glazed technique in which the tiles were produced, which was introduced to Italy from Islamic Spain, as was the idea of having a tiled pavement at all. Lastly, the geometric framework of stars and crosses evokes Islamic patterns, which were well known in Italy by this date.

Ceiling from the Palacio de Altamira, Torrijos

Spain was part of the Islamic world for nearly 800 years and so Islamic ornament was prevalent there through the continuity of local traditions, rather than the import of exotic art from the East. After the conquest of Granada in 1492 Islamic styles and techniques remained popular with the ruling elite. Luxurious palaces were created in which the architecture and furnishings were covered with Islamic designs. Sometimes rooms were crowned by magnificent marquetry ceilings like this one. Their construction method as well as their decoration continued an Islamic architectural form which emerged under the Nasrids, who installed many such ceilings in the Alhambra palace.

Detail of the ceiling from the Palacio de Altamira, Torrijos

Detail of the ceiling from the Palacio de Altamira, Torrijos, Spain. Museum no. 407-1905

Spain was part of the Islamic world for nearly 800 years, so Islamic ornament was prevalent there through the continuity of local traditions, rather than the import of exotic art from the East. After the conquest of Granada in 1492 Islamic styles and techniques remained popular with the ruling elite. Luxurious palaces were created in which the architecture and furnishings were covered with Islamic designs. Sometimes rooms were crowned by magnificent marquetry ceilings like this one. Their construction method as well as their decoration continued an Islamic architectural form which emerged under the Nasrids, who installed many such ceilings in the Alhambra palace.

Detail of the ceiling from the Palacio de Altamira, Torrijos

Detail of the ceiling from the Palacio de Altamira, Torrijos, Spain. Museum no. 407-1905

Ceiling from the Palacio de Altamira, Torrijos
(detail of Enriquez coat of arms)
Toledo, Spain
About 1490
Museum no. 407-1905

Spain was part of the Islamic world for nearly 800 years, so Islamic ornament was prevalent there through the continuity of local traditions, rather than the import of exotic art from the East. After the conquest of Granada in 1492 Islamic styles and techniques remained popular with the ruling elite. Luxurious palaces were created in which the architecture and furnishings were covered with Islamic designs. Sometimes rooms were crowned by magnificent marquetry ceilings like this one. Their construction method as well as their decoration continued an Islamic architectural form which emerged under the Nasrids, who installed many such ceilings in the Alhambra palace.

Design for Moresque ornament, Thomas Geminus

In 1548 Thomas Geminus, a French artist working in London, published the first pattern-book to appear in England, entitled Morysse and Damashin [Moresque and Damascene] renewed and encreased Very profitable for Goldsmythes and Embroiderars. The title reveals the particular popularity of these Renaissance versions of Islamic ornament on inlaid metalwork and embroidered textiles, though they were used on a wide range of objects made throughout Europe during the first half of the 16th century.

Moresque was popular at the English court of Henry VIII (reigned 1509–47) and is seen in many examples of clothing and hangings in royal portraits. The word 'damascening' is derived from the city of Damascus, from where Mamluk inlaid metalwork was probably exported to Europe.

Valance embroidered with moresques

This long panel of embroidered velvet forms part of the luxurious set of furnishings from a bed. Its design, embroidered in gold-wrapped thread, is a type of Renaissance ornament known as moresque which was frequently used on embroidered textiles. Here the design is formed from scrolls which interlace into a geometric pattern which repeats symmetrically across the panel. The scrolls terminate in fleshy palmettes. Rather than closely copying an original Islamic design, this pattern is an unmistakably Renaissance creation, but succeeds in imparting a strongly Islamic feel.

Gamesboard painted with arabesques

This stunning gamesboard is made from lapis lazuli and ebony and is painted with arabesque decorations in gold. Lapis lazuli came from mines in Afghanistan and is another example of a luxury raw material imported to Europe from the Islamic world. For centuries Venice was the point of entry for eastern hardstones and as a result developed an industry for hardstone carving. The arabesque patterns that decorate the sides of this gamesboard seem to be copied from Islamic originals, such as lacquer bookbindings or the delicate designs of illuminated manuscripts that probably came to Venice from the Ottoman world.